This invention relates to a roller bearing assembly for reducing friction between a relatively rotatable shaft member and support member.
Various antifriction roller bearing assemblies have been developed in the past, and some of such assemblies have included pivotally interconnected links with rollers therein. Such previous devices however generally have been designed to form a complete connected circle about the shaft, or rotating element, and thus it has been necessary to have the roller chain very precisely sized to accommodate it to the rotating and support elements in the assembly. Further, such previous roller bearing assemblies using interconnected links generally have rollers of a greater diameter than the side-to-side dimension, or width, of the connecting link plates. The rollers thus are in contact both with the stationary and rotating members, whereby they may be forced in some instances to actually slide, or skid, along the surface of one of the members rather than providing a true rolling action.
A general object of the present invention is to provide a novel roller bearing assembly which overcomes the disadvantages of previous assemblies set out above in a simple and economic manner.
More specifically, an object of the invention is to provide a roller bearing assembly for a shaft and support member which includes an elongate roller chain having pivotally interconnected links with rollers thereon, wherein the length of roller chain is less than the circumference of the shaft and its opposite ends are unconnected to each other, whereby varying lengths of roller chain may be utilized to provide a roller bearing for the shaft without requiring that the chain be precisely dimensioned to closely encircle the shaft. This permits use of a wide variety of roller chains and effects economies in construction and design.
Another object of the invention is to provide a novel roller bearing assembly including roller chain having link plates on which the rollers are rotatably mounted, which link plates are wider, or have a greater side-to-side dimension, than the diameters of the rollers. This permits the edge margins of the link plates to rest in frictional contact with the rotating member so that the roller chain will rotate with the rotating member, while the edge margins of the link plates on the opposite side of the roller chain may be disposed in facing relationship with opposed faces of the support to maintain the roller chain in desired position, with the rollers thereon aligned with and contacting the bearing surface of the support member.
These and other objects and advantages will become more fully apparent as the following description is read in conjunction with the drawings.